CHAPTER II.

STATE OF THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED.

SUPPOSE, in the next place, that the person, who found the watch, should, after some time, discover, that, in addition to all the properties which he had hitherto obferved in it, it poffeffed the unexpected property of producing, in the course of its movement, another watch like itself; (the thing is conceivable ;) that it contained within it a mechanifm, a fyftem of parts, a mould for inftance, or a complex adjustment of laths, files, and other tools, evidently and separately calculated for this purpofe; let us enquire, what effect ought fuch a discovery to have upon his former conclufion?

I. The firft effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction of the confummate fkill of the contriver. Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the diftinct apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible, mechanism by which it was carried on, he would perceive, in this new obfervation, nothing

but

but an additional reafon for doing what he had already done; for referring the construction of the watch to defign, and to fupreme art. If that conftruction without this property, or, which is the fame thing, before this property had been noticed, proved intention and art to have been employed about it; ftill more strong would the proof appear, when he came to the knowledge of this further property, the crown and perfection of all the rest.

II. He would reflect, that though the watch before him were, in some sense, the maker of the watch, which was fabricated in the course of its movements, yet it was in a very different fense from that, in which a carpenter, for inftance, is the maker of a chair; the author of its contrivance, the caufe of the relation of its parts to their use. With refpect to these, the first watch was no caufe at all to the fecond in no fuch fenfe as this was it the author of the conftitution and order, either of the parts which the new watch contained, or of the parts by the aid and inftrumentality of which it was produced. We might poffibly fay, but with great latitude of expreffion, that a ftream of water ground corn: but no latitude of expreffion would allow us to fay,

no

no stretch of conjecture could lead us to think, that the stream of water built the mill, though it were too ancient for us to know who the builder was. What the ftream of water does in the affair is neither more nor less than this: by the application of an unintelligent impulse to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged independently of it, and arranged by intelligence, an effect is produced, viz. the corn is ground. But the effect refults from the arrangement. The force of the ftream cannot be faid to be the caufe or author of the effect, ftill lefs of the arrangement. Understanding and plan in the formation of the mill were not the less neceffary, for any share which the water has in grinding the corn: yet is this share the fame, as that which the watch would have contributed to the production of the new watch, upon the fuppofition affumed in the laft fection. Therefore,

III. Though it be now no longer probable, that the individual watch which our obferver had found, was made immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet doth not this alteration in any wife affect the inference, that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned in the production. The argument

from

from defign remains as it was.

Marks of design and contrivance are no more accounted for now, than they were before. In the fame thing, we may afk for the cause of different properties. We may afk for the caufe of the colour of a body, of its hardnefs, of its heat; and these causes may be all different. We are now asking for the cause of that fubferviency to an ufe, that relation to an end, which we have remarked in the watch before us. No answer is given to this question by telling us that a preceding watch produced it. There cannot be design without a defigner; contrivance without a contriver; order without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of arranging; fubferviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means fuitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, difpofition of parts, fubferviency of means to an end, relation of inftruments to an ufe, imply the prefence of intelligence and mind. No one, therefore, can rationally believe, that the infenfible, inanimate watch, from which the watch before us iffued, was

the

the proper caufe of the mechanism we fo much admire in it; could be truly faid to have conftructed the inftrument, difpofed its parts, affigned their office, determined their order, action, and mutual dependency, combined their feveral motions into one refult, and that also a refult connected with the utilities of other beings. All thefe properties, therefore, are as much unaccounted for, as they were before.

IV. Nor is any thing gained by running the difficulty further back, i. e. by fuppofing the watch before us to have been produced from another watch, that from a former, and fo on indefinitely. Our going back ever so far brings us no nearer to the leaft degree of fatisfaction upon the fubje&. Contrivance is ftill unaccounted for. We ftill want a contriver. A designing mind is neither fupplied by this fuppofition, nor difpenfed with. If the difficulty were diminished the further we went back, by going back indefinitely we might exhaut it. And this is the only cafe to which this fort of reafoning applies. Where there is a tendency, or, as we increase the number of terins, a continual approach towards a limit, there, by fuppofing the number of terms to be

what